Israel’s Enduring Colonial Project in Palestine

Mehmet Rakipoglu

Exeter, UK (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Debates about Palestine in the Western academia often portray contemporary Israeli policies as exceptional responses to security ‘threats’ or regional instability. Yet a longer historical perspective suggests a deeper structural continuity: the persistence of colonial logic under evolving institutional and discursive forms. From the British Mandate period to contemporary geopolitical frameworks advanced by Israel and its Western allies, especially the United Kingdom and the United States, a consistent pattern emerges: territorial control coupled with indigenous political marginalization. What has changed is not the underlying logic of dominance, but its instruments and justificatory narratives.

Colonial rule in its classical form relied on direct conquest, resource extraction, and demographic engineering; in its contemporary iteration, it operates through legal ambiguity, interim governance regimes, technocratic planning, and internationalized policy frameworks that defer substantive indigenous rights. The case of the occupied Palestinian territory illustrates this transformation clearly. Policies resembling territorial partition, mobility control, and ambiguous decision-making—features observable in proposals such as the recent Gaza Plan by Kushner—resemble traditional imperial management strategies. Rather than depicting rupture, these mechanisms reveal continuity: a rebranded colonial order adapted to modern international norms, yet still grounded in territorial expansion and indigenous dispossession.

From a Classical Empire to Settler-Colonial Governance: Historical Continuities

Traditional colonialism was characterized by the expansion of imperial powers into foreign territories, the extraction of wealth, and the systematic marginalization—or elimination—of native populations. The British Empire stands as one of the most prominent examples of this model, historically seeking territorial expansion by appropriating land, labor, and resources across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The empire’s economic enrichment was inseparable from the dispossession of indigenous societies, a process that contributed to its characterization as the “empire on which the sun never sets.” Although formal imperial rule was gradually delegitimized—especially after the First and Second World Wars, when anti-colonial movements, decolonization struggles, and emerging international legal norms challenged overt imperial domination—this shift did not mark the end of colonial practices. Instead, colonialism has undergone institutional transformation.

During the late 1940s and 1950s, with the establishment of the United Nations and the normative consolidation of self-determination, direct territorial annexation became politically costly. Consequently, imperial actors increasingly adopted indirect methods: economic dependency, political conditionality, military partnerships, and normative governance frameworks that preserved influence without formal sovereignty. This transition from classical colonialism to neo-colonial governance did not eliminate extraction; it simply rearranged its mechanisms. Western powers continued to shape political futures in formerly colonized regions through aid regimes, security architectures, and development programs that structured local governance according to external priorities. Media narratives, academic discourses, educational partnerships, cultural diplomacy, and archaeological or heritage projects also functioned as softer instruments of influence. Through scholarships, joint initiatives, and institutional cooperation, consent was sometimes manufactured; in other cases, local elites or regional organizations were mobilized to internalize externally defined political agendas. Within this broader trajectory, the Israeli project in Palestine can be interpreted as a continuation—rather than an anomaly—of imperial governance adapted to contemporary geopolitical conditions….

https://www.juancole.com/2026/02/enduring-colonial-palestine.html

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